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February 12, 2013
President Obama just called for increased spending on infrasture, speficially saying he’d move to make necessary repairs on the scores of under-maintained bridges throughout the country. He also called to make pre-school available to every child in...

President Obama just called for increased spending on infrasture, speficially saying he’d move to make necessary repairs on the scores of under-maintained bridges throughout the country. He also called to make pre-school available to every child in America: “Every dollar we invest in early childhood education can save seven dollars later on, …Let’s do what works, and make sure none of our kids start the race of life already behind.”

21:45 // 11 years ago
February 14, 2012
22:10 // 12 years ago
March 24, 2011

Earthquake preparedness: Bay Area bridges in bad shape

  • 34% of bridges in San Francisco are structurally deficient source
0:38 // 12 years ago
March 20, 2011

AT&T’s T-Mobile buyout: Infrastructure, antitrust concerns at play

  • 35 million subscribers on T-Mobile’s current wireless setup
  • 100M number of subscribers Verizon has, buoyed by a large infrastructure that nobody can touch
  • 95M number of subscribers AT&T has — if the merger goes through, they’ll top Verizon
  • 40M number of subscribers Sprint has; they were also having merger talks with T-Mobile source

» It’s all about infrastructure: AT&T is trying hard to play catch-up with Verizon, which not only has more customers and bandwidth, but also now has the iPhone. The bummer for T-Mobile users is that AT&T’s monthly rates are far higher than T-Mobile’s, which as you might guess has people worried. While T-Mobile has tried to get ahead of talk like this, the concerns are enough that many analysts are warning that the deal won’t go through.

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21:30 // 13 years ago
February 10, 2011

Allentown, Pa. explosion a familiarly horrible sight for America

  • explosion Allentown, Pa. was rocked by a violent explosion at 11 p.m. EST last night, killing at least one and burning eight rowhouses. Five people remain missing.
  • explanation? Authorities in Allentown have claimed that the explosion has the “look” and “feel” of a natural gas incident, despite the local gas line passing checks last Tuesday. source

» Sleeping through the wake-up calls: Creaky gas lines leading to violent, deadly explosions have been more common than we’d like lately. You may recall last year’s colossal blast in San Bruno, California, for example, which killed eight people and raised a lot of concern over the state of gas lines nationwide. 2010 was a bad year for gas explosions, as this list attests, and it begs asking whether the U.S. government is shirking their responsibilities on infrastructure safety. In a world in which we’re constantly reminded and warned about very grand-scale, existential threats like global terrorism and the blight of nuclear weapons, the possibility that the ground is going to suddenly explode underneath us seems to get short shrift. With the Obama administration appearing to cede to a Republican-ish center on fiscal matters, odds are the concerted focus and infrastructure spending needed to answer these questions simply won’t be there. Which sucks, frankly.

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12:33 // 13 years ago
February 1, 2011

Worst party idea ever: Let’s celebrate “World IPv6 Day,” internet!

  • 06/08 the date of “World IPv6 Day,” when  the interwebs test a move from IPv4 to IPv6, as IPv4 space runs out
  • 0.05% of the interwebs may be negatively affected by the switch that day (half a million people!) source

» Our big quibble? If you’re going to make a big deal about switching the infrastructure of the Internet, why do it on that day when there’s an obvious date with instant branding possibilities? If they had done this on April 6 instead of June 8, it would be way easier to promote. But let’s face it. Nerds don’t think about stupid things like promotion. (By the way, go here if you wanna test your readiness.)

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22:05 // 13 years ago
December 20, 2010

AT&T makes huge investment in more wireless spectrum

  • $2 billion for fresh bandwidth; fewer dropped calls, possibly? source
10:58 // 13 years ago